PREFACE. 



vii 



one glance the characteristic beauties of England or Europe, one must have 

 seen more than England or Europe ; and artists would be able to improve 

 even upon their present style of shady lanes, &c. &c., if they had spent 

 a few nights in the desert, made several excursions in a virgin forest, or 

 seen the mighty working of the icy masses in the Arctic and Antarctic 

 circles. 



The physiognomy of plants is a subject which can be advanced, 

 perhaps, more by intelligent artists than by botanists. Our morphological 

 learning disqualifies us, in a great measure, for physiognomic studies. 

 With our heads crammed with theoretical prototypes, and fully imbued 

 with the desire to discover, under the unimportant external drapery, 

 the law to which our classifying age attaches so much value, we are 

 apt to overlook physiognomic features altogether ; and our sense of the 

 beautiful is so little cultivated, that it would be in danger of becoming 

 totally blunted if it were not brought in daily contact with the grand 

 works of nature. Not so the artist, who, free from this incubus, and 

 looking upon the scenes before him without any preconceived notions, 

 would probably lay hold of their chief physiognomical features, if he were 

 an intelligent man, much more readily than we plant-hunters. 



A striking instance of this is given by M. Von Kittlitz. Though little 

 versed in botany, as he candidly admits, he has produced a series of 

 pictures which are unrivalled for their truthfulness, and will ever be a 

 source of deep interest and study, whether we regard them with the eyes 

 of artists or 'of botanists. On the Continent they have been fully appre- 

 ciated, and it is stated that the work, from which the plates here given 

 have been reduced, is totally out of print. Indeed, the copy placed at 

 my disposal by the publishers for the purpose of translation, is said to 

 have been the last that could be procured. 



It must ever be a matter of regret that the talented author, who 

 first prepared the originals and then spent years in order to perfect himself 



